A Deadly Threat to My Family (Johnson Production Group, Lifetime, 2024)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2024 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Last night (Sunday, May 5) I watched a couple of Lifetime movies that were, at least by Lifetime standards, unusually good. The first was called A Deadly Threat to My Family and it was about one of my favorite subjects: the madness of religious cults and the harm they wreak upon the poor unfortunates who get caught up in them. Unlike previous Lifetime movies on this theme, like the one about the NXIVM cult I wrote about in 2019 (https://moviemagg.blogspot.com/2019/09/escaping-nxivm-cult-mothers-fight-to.html), the cult in this one is fictional, though it appears to be based at least in part on the notorious “Heaven’s Gate” cult of the (blessedly) late Marshall Applewhite. The cult in this one is ostensibly led by a nice-looking youngish man who calls himself “Aleph” (Rib Hillis), and it preaches that on a certain date called “The Rise” the world will end and the cult members will have to commit mass suicide on that date so they can be resurrected and saved from the ensuing apocalypse. The cult’s logo is an interlocking set of three equilateral triangles, the members are required to wear red at all times, and they’re forbidden to be around any metallic objects because metal supposedly has bad vibrations. (Oddly, they’re allowed to drive even though cars are made mostly of metal.)

The film opens with the conviction of Aleph in a trial for attempted murder; the key witness against him is former cult acolyte turned informant Serena Harris (Gina Vitori), who after Aleph’s conviction moves into a house that’s been secured for her by her brother Ryan (Mark Ricketson, considerably hunkier and sexier than most of the nondescript sandy-haired actors who play “good” husbands in Lifetime movies) and her sister-in-law Marielle (Jessica Morris, top-billed). Only Marielle in particular is convinced that Serena’s cult membership isn’t as “former” as advertised; she gets concerned that Serena is not only still part of the cult herself but is trying to recruit Ryan’s and Marielle’s teenage daughter Aria (Isabella Mercurio) into it. In Aleph’s absence, ostensible leadership of the cult has passed to his disciple Laurel (Lelia Symington), though the final climactic scene shows a grey-haired older woman who appears to be the real power behind the cult. Laurel keeps showing up in the vicinity of Serena and also the home of Alex and Marielle, and writer Abby Knight does a quite good job of keeping us in suspense as to whether or not Serena is still part of the cult. This is Abby Knight’s first and, so far, only credit on imdb.com, but if the quality of this script is any indication, she deserves far more work (and not just on Lifetime, either!). The director is Erin Lovett (definitely a woman; I’m guessing Abby Knight is female, too, though there’s no definitive indication of their gender on their imdb.com page), who like Knight turns in a quite good job, effectively using as a visual symbol the clear ampules in which the cult leaders distribute their poison to the members.

The crisis sparks a long-running argument between Marielle, who’s convinced that Serena is still loyal to the cult even after being the key witness in the trial of its ostensible leader, and her husband Ryan, who not surprisingly defends Serena’s honor and integrity against Marielle’s attacks – she is his sister, after all! The ending was a bit of a disappointing cop-out after what had gone so brilliantly before, but it still packed a punch: Laurel, determined that the Harrises must be part of the great sacrifice because their blood is uniquely important to the cosmos (or whatever), essentially kidnaps Aria and takes her to the cult HQ. Serena follows them there and offers herself in Aria’s place, but Laurel insists that both Serena and Aria must take the poison. Laurel force-feeds it to Serena, whereupon Ryan and Marielle show up after they’ve deduced where the cult compound is. Then Laurel waves another small flask, this one containing the antidote, and teases Ryan and Marielle with it, Fortunately, Marielle is able to overpower Laurel – by then the other cult members, including the old woman who seems to be in overall charge, have taken their doses of poison and therefore rendered themselves out of commission – and grab the antidote. She gives it to Serena, and then the police show up (Ryan had the foresight to call them) and take charge of the scene. There’s a final tag scene in which it turns out Serena will be O.K. and she was playing along with the cult, which she no longer believed in, to keep Aria safe from it. Though the ending is a bit strained, overall A Deadly Threat to My Family is a quite good Lifetime production, well staged, powerfully acted and an overall indication of the horrors of cults while also not blind to their attraction for certain individuals.